Bella Notte
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: May, 2002: What exactly happened the night of that dance that's been mentioned? Reid/OC Please review! One-shot. AU.


**All right, I'm not sure what to do with my Leah/Reid series, so I thought I'd do this for right now.**

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><p>May, 2002<p>

New Haven, Connecticut

Dr. Spencer Reid sat on the couch of the apartment he shared with his might-as-well-be sister, 16-year-old Leah Prentiss. He was working on the assignments for his second PhD. Leah was at the last dance held while she was in college, the first in the four years that she had been at Yale that she would actually be going to.

Leah was painfully shy, so much so that she often times came off as aloof to those who didn't know her. He was the only one who really knew her, outside of her being the genius, or tech whiz, or girl with all the right answers for every class (studying was a lot easier when you had an eidetic memory).

Spencer had been thrilled for her when Brian Anderson, six years her senior, had started hanging around her, wanting to become friends, or seemingly more. Both Spencer and Leah had been thrilled when Brian had asked her to the dance.

Leah had delved into the money she had saved back, a surprisingly substantial amount for a person her age (should he find out where it was all coming from?) and bought a dress all silk and glitter that was utterly girly in Spencer's very uneducated opinion.

Spencer's cellphone rang. He looked away from his textbook - computers only slowed him down - and checked the caller ID.

Why was Leah calling? She was at the dance with Brian. He answered his cell.

"Leah?"

"Spencer?" She sounded on the verge of tears. "I need you to come get me."

Spencer sat his textbook aside. "Where's Brian? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Brian is at the dance – with Mackenzie."

"Your old roommate?"

"Yeah."

"But why?"

"Because they planned it that way! Just please come take me home."

Spencer was all ready on his feet and pulling on his jacket. "I'm on my way."

He fumed as he drove towards the campus. Yale was a haven for the bright minds that found their way there. Pranks like this one were few and far between, but it seemed like Leah bore the brunt of them.

She was the youngest person enrolled in the school, and had had to adapt to life in Connecticut versus Rome besides. The cherry on top of the proverbial sundae was that she had no parents to go to, had never even met them. She knew who they were only from extensive illegal hacking that Spencer wasn't supposed to know about.

When he got a hold of Brian Anderson it wasn't going to be a pretty sight, he would see to that. That much he was sure of as he pulled into the campus parking lot.

That changed, though, when he saw Leah sitting alone in the on-campus resteraunt.

"Hey." He said softly, going up to where she sat.

She smiled weakly, stood up, grabbed her wrap, and they headed for the door without another word.

Back at the apartment complex, she commented absently as they stood in the parking lot, "_E 'una__bella notte_."

Spencer smiled down at her. "You look kind of like one yourself."

And she did resemble "a beautiful night". Her dress matched the starry sky. Her dark brown eyes shone like the moon. She was beautiful, and not in a little sister sort of way. More of a "woman that someone would get the privilege of living his life with" sort of way.

Someone like him, maybe?

Whoa. Where had that come from?

"Are you coming?" Leah asked.

She'd moved a few of yards ahead of him, towards the complex. He jogged after her and they went to their apartment.

Once inside, Leah went straight to her bedroom and changed into a baggy gray t-shirt and a pair of purple pajama pants. She dragged herself back into the living room and flopped onto the couch. She pulled her knees up to her chest and reached for Spencer's textbook, which he had abandoned there.

"Are you okay?" Spencer asked as gently as he knew how, sitting down beside her.

"I'll survive."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

That was all it took to get her to be honest with him. She cursed Brian Anderson, and the dance, but above all she cursed her own "stupidity" – her choice of word, not his.

"Do you feel better now?" Spencer asked once she had had a small cry. All she would allow herself, he knew.

"Yeah. Thanks."

He wasn't sure what she was thanking him for. "Any time."

"You know?" she said a little wistfully. "I've never actually danced before. Not with somebody. Just silly stuff when nobody's looking."

Really? _That's _what she had wanted?

Spencer thought for a minute before standing up, turning on the CD player, and inserting a CD of ballroom dance music into it. Leah raised her eyebrows, expression skeptical.

"Come on." Spencer coaxed.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

He walked over and grabbed her wrists, pulling.

"No!" She whined like a child half her age dug her heels into the carpet.

"But she was smiling now.

She gave in and stood up when he made it clear that he would pull on her all night if that was what it took.

"It's going to be weird." She whined, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Just pretend I'm Brian, then." He put a hand tentatively on the small of her back.

She scowled. "You don't want me to do that. I'd end up punching you."

He smiled at that and so did she. He didn't know if she was joking or not, though.

By the time the slow song ended, her hands were around his neck, her head a pleasant weight against his chest. She pulled away first.

"Thanks, Spencer. That wasn't so bad."

"No, it wasn't." he agreed.

"Okay, well, I'm all better now. I'm gonna go to bed now." She turned to go down the hall, saying, "You're a great brother, Spencer."

"Yeah." He whispered to the still apartment once Leah was out of hearing range. "A brother."

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><p><strong>Please reveiw! Okay, I realize I have some people miffed at me at the moment because of how I handled my recent poll, so I want to apologize for that. I did intend to use it, but as I got to looking into the later storyline, I couldn't figure out a way to do that and work it all out the way it's supposed to go. So, again, sorry. Also, as I've been saying, as of March 20th, you won't hear from me until April 20th, unless something changes. I have no idea what to do after this anyway. :( Rest assured, though, you have not seen the rest of Leah Prentiss-Reid! Not by a long shot.<strong>


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